User talk:Heron/2008

Styrophone

Another editor has added the "{{prod}}" template to the article Styrophone, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but the editor doesn't believe it satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and has explained why in the article (see also Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not and Wikipedia:Notability). Please either work to improve the article if the topic is worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia or discuss the relevant issues at its talk page. If you remove the {{prod}} template, the article will not be deleted, but note that it may still be sent to Wikipedia:Articles for deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. BJBot (talk) 00:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK. I've updated the article. --Heron (talk) 12:24, 12 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Appositive as opposed to oppositive

Thanks for your note at my page, Heron. I have that same edition of Fowler's (and every preceding edition, I'm happy to be able to report!). I checked: certainly oppositive is just a slip, very likely at the proofreading stage.

Interesting!

I hope to see you around.

– Noetica^♬♩ Talk 23:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Active high and active low

Active high and active low can only be explained with reference to each other, and it doesn't look as if either of them is ever going to be a big article. I would like to rename active low into Active high and active low, merge active high into the moved article, and then make active high and active low redirects. What do you think about the idea? --Hans Adler (talk) 15:38, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It sounds like a good idea to me. Active high is hardly used, so it won't hurt to move it. --Heron (talk) 19:52, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I will be bold and do it. By the way, a bunch of people are trying to clean up the area around Boolean algebra, especially the mathematical side. One thing that bothers me is that there are inconsistent notations around: ab, a+b, a' or a∧b, a∨b, ¬a. I think we are more or less forced to use the second notation for certain mathematical articles. Now I have seen a small number of electronics oriented books that also use it. Do you think it is widespread? Perhaps spreading? Who could I ask? I am trying to find out if we really need to split the area into two clusters with inconsistent notation, and where to split. --Hans Adler (talk) 20:04, 29 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have not seen that notation used in electronic engineering. I would assume, although I could be wrong, that someone who uses it is an academic without much practical experience in the subject. Perhaps you could ask a question on Talk:Digital electronics. --Heron (talk) 18:43, 31 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Active high and active low got put into Active high and active low (which no-one was ever going to find), so I put the content into Logic level which seems a reasonable place to gather all that. Better one short article than a fleet of stubs. Thankfully there's a redirect mechanism, though I'm cleaning up all that I find. --Wtshymanski (talk) 18:34, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. The new structure looks fine to me. I've given the article a clean-up. --Heron (talk) 18:57, 23 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Commons name change

This is to confirm that I am the same person who is requesting a name change on Wikimedia Commons, from Heron2 to Heron. Thanks! --Heron (talk) 10:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Wikinews name change

This is to confirm that I am the same person who is requesting a name change on Wikinews, from RealHeron to Heron, which will require a usurpation of the Heron account. Thanks! --Heron (talk) 10:48, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Done, thanks to User:Cspurrier. --Heron (talk) 18:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Edit to Electric current article

Hi Heron. A quick question for you. After reverting an anonymous edit to the Electric current article, I noticed an edit summary for an edit you made April 11:

"this is not the place for a definition of the ampere, especially when it's utterly wrong, so deleted it and linked to ampere"

Taking a look at the diff, left me curious. The section deleted didn't read like it attempted any definition of the ampere at all. Here's the deleted section:

The amount of electric current (measured in amperes) through some surface, e.g., a section through a copper conductor, is defined as the amount of electric charge (measured in coulombs) flowing through that surface over time. If Q is the amount of charge that passed through the surface in the time T, then the average current I is:

$I={\frac {Q}{T}}$

By making the measurement time T shrink to zero, we get the instantaneous current i(t) as:

$i(t)={\frac {dQ}{dt}}$

The ampere, the measure of electric current, is an SI base unit so that the coulomb, the measure of electric charge, is derived from the definition of the ampere.

Electric current is, at the most fundamental level, simply the flow of electric charge. However, the amount (not unit!) of electric current must also be defined. From pg 684, Physics, 2nd Edition, OHanian, we have:

"Suppose that an amount of charge dq flows past some given point of the wire in time dt; then the electric current is defined as charge divided by time, I = dq/dt"

This certainly doesn't define the ampere, it defines I, the amount of electric current. I is measured in amperes but I doesn't define amperes. So, if don't object, I'd like to reinstate that section of the article with any appropriate clarifications you might suggest. Alfred Centauri (talk) 22:05, 24 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. I must admit that I didn't think very hard, when I made that edit, about the difference between "The amount of electric current (measured in amperes) ... is defined as" and "the ampere is defined as". You have a point, but the more I think about it, the more confused I get.

The ampere is defined (by the SI) in terms of force and length
The coulomb is defined (by the SI) in terms of amperes
"Amount of current" is defined (by WP, but, your textbook notwithstanding, is it correct?) in terms of coulombs
WP then says that "amount of current" is measured in amperes

(I've deliberately left out seconds.) This looks to me like a circular definition, or is it figure-of-8-shaped?. I think you would argue that the fourth bullet point does not include the word "define" and therefore does not complete the circle, but I would say that you were on thin ice. I won't object if you revert my edit, but I might contine to look for a better way of explaining it.

Another point I'd like to make is that we already have the Q=It equation in the 'current in a metal wire' section, so it's a bit unsatisfactory to have it repeated. Perhaps if you reinstate the first mention then the second one should be taken out. Anyway, thanks for alerting me to this. --Heron (talk) 17:48, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

SFO

Hello Heron

I like what your doing with the article, your good at cleaning up it looks better thanks to you. Police,Mad,Jack (talk · contribs)☺ 17:59, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm glad to hear it. Thanks! --Heron (talk) 18:09, 30 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

WikiProject History of Science newsletter : Issue IV - May 2008

A new May 2008 issue of the WikiProject History of Science newsletter is hot off the virtual presses. Please feel free to make corrections or add news about any project-related content you've been working on. You're receiving this because you are a participant in the History of Science WikiProject. You may read the newsletter or unsubscribe from this notification by following the link. Yours in discourse--ragesoss (talk) 23:12, 2 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your elegant edits

Thank you for your elegant edits to the Memristor article recently. By changing only one or two words you corrected and clarified a highly technical topic with gentle grace and intelligent insight. --Norandav (talk) 05:44, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It's very kind of you to say so. You've made my day! Anyway, I intend to keep a close eye on that article, as I fear that the 'fourth element' hype may turn out to be unfounded. --Heron (talk) 08:35, 5 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The coor template

That's really weird. Thanks for reverting it. For reference, all I did was this, so I don't know what happened there, but yeah, thank you :) weburiedoursecrets inthegarden 21:42, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome :) --Heron (talk) 21:49, 16 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

EMF

"Seat of electromagnetic force" was a term my physics teachers used, but few others use in discussing electricity. Frankly, it always sounded like a chair from which you would quickly rise if you sat in it, or a 19th century term for a device or capital punishment, right up there with "electromort." "Potential difference" seems more commonly used to represent that which causes current to flow in a circuit, or that which would cause current to flow if the circuit were completed. "EMF" is quite commonly used to represent electromagnetic field, in the numerous studies on the effects of AC electricity on living things. The U.S. government uses it [1]. I guess we can live with the dual meaning of the abbreviation, since context makes it clear which use is meant. "EM field" could possible be taken to mean "electromotive field," however nonsensical, so it may not gain much of a following. My own personal view is one of purdent avoidance. I see no good reason to sit near a conductor carrying 200 amps when there is a perfectly good place to sit farther away. I am more suspicious of a celphone glued to someones ear several hundred minutes a mopnth than a distribution line half a block away, or even a substation next door. Lots of people worked in electrical substations or on distribution lines or generating stations for decades and lived to be 90. There may confounding factors leading to weak statistical associations of cancer and proximity to power lines (rich people are able to live farther from overhead power lines, and perhaps can afford better nutrition and medical care for their children, and smoke less, etc). I have not seen the smoking gun evidence for other cancer causes. Many people over the decades have heard the word "radiation" and somehow associated electromagnetic radiation with X-rays, radium exposure, watch dial painters, etc, with as little regard for the truth as reporters who showed vapor coming from a nuclear plant cooling tower and said it was a radiation leak. Edison (talk) 21:19, 29 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Edison. I'm going to continue using EMF to mean electromotive force exclusively. It's interesting that us.gov use it in the electromagnetic field sense, but that doesn't mean that it's right. I suspect that non-physicists, perhaps biologists, have started to use this abbreviation without knowing that physicists have already defined it as something else. But, as you say, perhaps we can live with the dual meaning.

Like you, I wouldn't choose to live next to a power line, but I doubt that 50 Hz or 60 Hz fields are the direct cause of cancer. I think that there is a lot of misuse of statistics in this debate. --Heron (talk) 08:29, 1 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed deletion of John Swinton

A proposed deletion template has been added to the article John Swinton, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the {{dated prod}} notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page.

Please consider improving the article to address the issues raised because, even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. Verbal chat 16:30, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, but I don't think I need to respond to this since the deletion tag has been removed. Anyway, I added some more info to the article to make it less deletable. --Heron (talk) 18:07, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As he was demonstrably an FRS I don't think he's deletable at all. Wikipedia:Notability (academics)#Criteria explicitly states that a Fellow of the Royal Society is notable. MadScot (talk) 18:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you. I didn't know about that WP policy. --Heron (talk) 10:34, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Electronic flash

Hi, Heron. Thanks very much for the thorough answer you provided to my query about electronic photoflash units. Could I interest you in adding this info to Flash photography? Best, —Scheinwerfermann (talk) 16:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome, and that's a good idea. I'll see if I can find some verifiable information. --Heron (talk) 10:25, 10 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Tlalpan

Hello Heron:

Thank you for your work on Tlalpan. It seems to be quite "wild", yet inside the city limits. Wanderer57 (talk) 21:10, 21 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

You are welcome. --Heron (talk) 12:03, 22 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]